February 28, 2010

February 26, 2010

Tonight for dinner I decided to make Meatball Subs. I love a meatball sub every once in a while but sometimes they can be loaded with sauce. I don't like a lot of sauce b/c it makes them soggy. I also wanted to put as many meatballs on the sub that I wanted. I couldn't wait to make my own my way. :)

To make you will need:

Hoagie Rolls

Meatballs (you can use premade ones or make your own)

Spaghetti Sauce

Provolone Cheese

French Fries

First off I cut the Hoagie rolls and put them on the baking sheet and then stuck them in the oven for a few minutes to get them toasty. I then put the fries (with a little salt) in the oven to bake.

Fries are a good side item for the meatball subs or you can put them on the sub. :)

I cooked up the meatballs on the stove top. I just added some W sauce, pepper and water. (Water I used to keep them from burning)

I placed 2 slices of Provolone cheese on the bottom part of the toasted Hoagie Roll. I added a little Spaghetti sauce on top of the cheese and then added the meatballs. I then drizzled a little more sauce on top of the meatballs and then of course another slice of Provolone Cheese.

Then add the tops of the Hoagie Rolls and stick in the oven for a few minutes. (until cheese is melted and everything is hot)

Will you believe that I've never been to a Pampered chef party?? Yeah, that's right. I have Pampered chef products but have never actually gone or hosted a party. I want to have one this summer. I love Pampered chef!! I have come across some items I need in my Kitchen!!

The first item being Coating trays & tool and the second item being a Springform Pan. Ahh....I will get these items one day! :)

February 23, 2010

I love Blueberry muffins!! I really enjoy Duncan Hines Blueberry Streusel Muffins. For me time is everything and sometimes I just don't have time to make everything from scratch. So, this box mix is very simple and not time consuming to make. I like taking the simple way and that makes me happy. As I was mixing everything together I noticed a little difference in the color of the mix. It was darker than usual. Then I looked at the box and saw that's it's 100% whole grain. Who knew?? I was so excited. Now eating 3 of these in one sitting won't make me feel bad at all since it's 100% whole grain! AWESOME!!

Drain your blueberries and rinse with cold water....

Once you've mixed the mix with eggs, water and oil, fold in the drained blueberries....

Put mix in the muffin tins and then add the Streusel topping.

Yum!!The 100% whole wheat doesn't change the taste to it at all. It tastes just as good if not better. And the house will smell like delicious blueberry muffins for the rest of the day. :)

February 16, 2010

My brother came home on leave today. He wanted something sweet to eat. He wanted Monkey Bread and I laughed at him. I showed him Cookin' Canuck's Reese's Peanut Butter & chocolate Cheesecake Bars recipe. He drooled a little. ahahaha :) I told him I want to make those one day but I don't have time today since I have to go to work in a little bit, plus I don't have all the ingredients. So, Kirk told me that he had a package of Reese's cups in his car. He mentioned maybe PB brownies. I told him I could make brownies and we could add the Reese's to the mix. He agreed. So, he went to his car and got the candy. He opened all of them up, stuck them in a large ziploc bag. I mixed up the brownies and then I chopped the Reese's, added them to the brownie mix and baked them. They turned out pretty good. I think next time it would be better to use the Reese's PB baking chips. Then it would be more peanut buttery. :)

For dinner tonight I made Chili. I was craving it and since it's really cold out it's a good comfort food. When I got home from work after midnight this morning I put it all together so it would cook all day in the crock pot. :)

2lbs Ground Turkey

W sauce

Pepper

Celery

2 Onions

3 can of Tomato Sauce

1 can of light red Kidney Beans

2 pkgs of McCormick Chili Seasoning

I plugged in the crock pot, sprayed some PAM and put it on low. I then cooked the meat with a little W sauce and pepper. Then I drained the meat and added it to the crock pot. Then I cut up the 2 onions and added them to the pot. I then washed and cut up the celery stalk and added that to the crock. I drained the can of kidney beans, added to crock pot and then mixed it all together. Then I added the tomato sauce, mixed and then added the Chili Seasoning. Mix well and let it cook/simmer. Later in the morning when Nate got up for work I had him turn the crock pot down to warm. The only bad thing about making this is at 4am.....we both woke up smelling the chili and our stomachs were growling for it. :)

February 14, 2010

Last night, the hubbies played some poker and the women (Kristen, Melissa, Crystal and I) went to dinner and a movie. We had dinner at Logan's and Evan was our waiter. Worst waiter ever!! He really needs to get a clue and find another job. Some people just aren't cut out for waiting on people. We saw 'Dear John'. Not my favorite movie but it had some very sad and very good parts.

Today, Kristen and I threw Melissa a little '30th birthday brunch'. She thought she was coming over for a Subeta day. (a virtual game that we play together) Little did she know that wasn't the plan. She was surprised! :)

The menu:

Chicken Salad

Crossiants

Punch

Fruit

Chocolate

Chips

Creme' Puffs

Green Stuff (like a watergate salad)

Carrot Cake cupcakes (sooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo good)

The Punch (I don't remember who I got the recipe from) is always a huge hit at every party we've had it at so we knew we wanted to make it for the brunch. It's very easy and only needs 3 ingredients.

To make the punch:

Bottle of Gingerale

Oranges (sliced)

Sherbert ice cream

Put the Sherbert ice cream (you can use whatever flavor sherbert you want) in the punch bowl, slice up some oranges we used a regular orange and a blood orange (for color). Then add a bottle of gingerale. You will love it, I promise! :) Welcome to the 30's Melissa!! :)

Dave brought over some catnip for the cats last night. We let them play with it today. Harley and Lizzy both enjoyed it very much. Harley fell asleep after rolling on and playing with it for a bit. Next time, Dave needs to bring another one so they won't have to share them. Harley was getting a little jealous that Lizzy wanted to play with it. Dave please bring another one. :)

February 12, 2010

I not only like to bake and cook but I also like to take photographs. I'm def not a professional photographer but I think I take some decent shots. On my way to work downtown I always go under the train tracks and these last few days some icicles have been hanging there. I've been wanting to take pictures of them so I grabbed the camera and took it with me when I ran some errands. Here are some of the pictures.....

The last one made me smile. I was sitting at a traffic light, snow is sitting all around and the car in front of me said "ah beach". That's right!! Ahhhhhhhhhhh beach! :)

February 7, 2010

While making dinner tonight (I made meatballs stroganoff) I felt like giving another recipe that I found a try. Easy Pudding cookies! I had everything on hand except for chocolate chips but I figured I'd still give it a shot. The cookies came out nice and soft. I will def make them again but I'll make sure to add some chocolate chips. :)

what you need!

1 cup (2 sticks) butter or margarine, softened

1 cup packed brown sugar

1 pkg. (3.9 oz.) JELL-O Chocolate Instant Pudding

2 eggs

1 tsp. baking soda

2 cups flour

1 pkg. (6 squares) BAKER'S White Chocolate, chopped

make it!

HEAT oven to 350°F.

BEAT butter and sugar in large bowl with mixer until light and fluffy. Add dry pudding mix; beat until well blended. Add eggs and baking soda; mix well. Gradually add flour, beating after each addition until well blended. Stir in chocolate.

First off, I browned the steak with some pepper and W sauce. Once it was done I put it in a 9 x 13 glass dish. I added the Can of Cream of Chicken soup and water. (water: about as much as the empty can) I then covered with foil and baked for about 2 hours @ 350. Once it was done I turned the oven down to warm, stirred it, covered and kept it in the oven. I peeled some potatoes and cut them into little pieces and cooked them on the stove. Once they were done, I mashed them and mixed them with milk, pepper, salt and some butter. Then I put a pile of mashed potatoes in the middle of the plate and added the 'soup' on top. It's very filling and delicious. I'm fairly certain this will become a regular meal.

I wanted French Toast this morning. I asked Nate if he wanted some and his reply "I'm not a big fan of French Toast". Who's not a fan of French Toast??? WOW!! So, I thought "fine, more for me". I found a recipe online for Easy French Toast. I thought it was perfect b/c it was enough mix just for 2 slices of bread.

Soak bread slices in egg mixture for 20 second on each side, or until thoroughly coated. Cook bread until both sides are lightly browned and crisp. Serve hot.

I followed the directions. As I put in 1 tablespoon of Cinnamon I was thinking that might be too much. As I tasted my French Toast I thought it was too much cinnamon. I'm not a huge fan of this recipe but at least I got my French Toast fix. The best French Toast I've ever had is Kristen's but well she's not snowed in with me to make any. LOL :)

Since Nate is outside using the snow blower I figured I would make him some Cinnamon sugar donuts.

February 2, 2010

Last month my friend Melissa, mentioned that she made some delicious banana crumb muffins. So, today I checked my pantry, had all the ingredients and decided to give it a go. They are totally some of the best muffins I've ever had. Thank you Melissa!!!! :)

In a large bowl, mix together 1 1/2 cups flour, baking soda, baking powder and salt. In another bowl, beat together bananas, sugar, egg and melted butter. Stir the banana mixture into the flour mixture just until moistened. Spoon batter into prepared muffin cups.